2K Games announced today that Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution is now available for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution for iPhone and iPod touch contains hundreds of hours of gameplay from veteran game developer Firaxis Games. As a special offer for fans, Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution is available for the introductory price of $4.99 for the first 48 hours before it moves to its standard price of $9.99.

Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution for iPhone and iPod touch brings Civilization Revolution's renowned gameplay, including 16 playable civilizations, multiple difficulty levels, an integrated tutorial and more to mobile users. The iPhone version features new graphics and an entirely new gesture-based interface that takes advantage of the power of the platform.

As one of the most respected franchises in the gaming industry, the Civilization series has sold more than 9 million units worldwide. In 1991, Sid Meier put computer gaming on the map when he first delivered Civilization to the PC gaming world, launching the "God Game" genre and creating one of the most award-winning and addictive strategy series of all time. Built specifically for console and handheld systems, Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution features the franchise's fastest pick-up-and-play action to date and still honors the most beloved elements from the core series: strategic global reign and encounters with history's most intrepid leaders.

Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution for the iPhone and iPod touch is now available in North America via Apple's App Store for $4.99 for the first 48 hours and $9.99 thereafter. iTunes users can visit iTunes to purchase this version of the game. For more information, please visit www.civilizationrevolution.com/iphone

-Despite what the developer claims it is pretty much a port of the DS version of the game with some iPhone optimizations to controls and display (they took advantage of the iPhone's higher resolution and better ability to display text).

-The game is a MONSTER! It weighs in at 73M (and, ironically, 75M for the lite version). It is unlikely to play nice on anything short of a iPhone 3g or iPod Touch 2g (you can play it on lesser systems but it is bound to be pretty choppy).

-The lite is a great free way to preview the game but, be warned, for some reason the lite was not very well optimized and plays much choppier/laggier than the full game does. If you play the lite and like it with the only downside being the lagginess, odds are the full version will play much better for you.

I've also just heard that the game eats batteries for breakfast! While I've been playing it a lot, I usually do so plugged into my computer and failed to notice this.

Here is my question to my very own technical expert, Mr. Zhang.

Would simply bright graphics drain a lot more power than darker graphics or would this possibly indicate a lot of heavy processing? It's a turn-based game so it isn't like it needs to update the screen constantly like some 3D action arcade game. Or could extra heavy battery drain really just be a matter of inefficient coding?

Oh, I try to stay away from games that don't address battery well. I had a game which I shall not name, and when I wanted to exit the game, I had to restart my iPhone, otherwise the game would run in the background and drain my battery dry.

Every time you have battery drain issue it's a bug that the dev should fix. I can see the AI working in the background on a TBS game but that shouldn't add more work load to the battery than a 3D shooter for example.

I also wonder if there is something of a subjective perception in regards to the battery drain. This is a game that can go on for hours so perhaps people get very sucked up into the game and didn't realize they were already playing it for three hours?

At least according to one report it drained to about half after an hour and a half so, if this is a constant, do most bright graphic/processor intensive games on iPhone last M ORE than 3 hours on a single charge?

Depends on the way the codes are written. TBS games can use very little resources, but more complex AI like the Civ games can be taxing. But regardless, the developers should always make the game battery friendly when they port codes to mobile platforms. 3-hour continuous playing isn't a good benchmark, but it's not too bad either.